Modern Family

I recently started watching Modern Family and in one boring weekend I watched an entire season. The most recent episode I watched was centered around the idea of the ‘Dreamer’ and the ‘Realist’.

It all began when Jay, the father disagreeing with his new wife on how to give constructive criticism to his stepson. Jay sees criticism as a way to prepare a child for the real world while his wife Gloria coddles and praises her son to think he is the best at everything.  This is just another funny situation where the personalities of these two characters clashing but I saw it as something more.

In my first post I discussed the Chinese mother versus the Western mother. The Chinese mother represents Jay’s philosophy and the Western mother is Gloria in Amy Chua’s terms. It was interesting to see the situation play out through the show. Manny, the son, has been nurtured all his life, he took his mother’s words to heart and did not understand why people did not have the same opinions as his mother. 

The episode was great because Claire and Mitchell, Jay's older children, demonstrated the same characteristics and implemented them on their own children and partners. I think my parents were definitely Jay and I think I will also possess the same ideals when I have my children. I have always been realistic, I hate thinking about the what ifs, its just something I never did. Maybe I learned to be a 'realist' from my upbringing.


What are you? A realist or a dreamer?

The awkward question

“So…Where are you from?”

“Uh…where do I begin…?”

Don’t ask me where I am from. 

Like many international students, I have a very hard time answering that question. I guess the main problem is, what exactly does it mean when someone asks you where you’re from. Another confusing thing about this question to me is often times there isn’t just one answer. Whether you want to refer to where I live, where I was born or the culture of my parents, only one answer rarely reflects who I truly am. 

As an international student I am influenced by many cultures, I don’t want to choose one place in particular. So who am I?


I am Taiwanese, born in Los Angeles but I grew up in Thailand.

What a mouthful! Nowadays I just stick with a simple “I grew up in Bangkok, Thailand”. But this often leads to confusion that I am Thai (which I am not) and why I am “so fluent in English”. Sigh*.


Perhaps asking "Where I am from" translates to "Where I call home"...With so many cultures and countries that I relate to, I can't pick just one place. I'm kind of suffering from an identity crisis and a lack of sense of belonging. I can't call the US home, I've never lived there longer than 3 years. I can't call Thailand my home, I barely know the culture nor do I speak the language fluently. And I can't call Taiwan my home either. I suppose international students like myself have a hard time answering "Where are you from" because we identify ourselves with so many countries but none at the same time. We can't choose one without feeling like we've cheated on other parts of our identity. We deal with the obnoxious close-minded assumptions that we don't speak English, and after some explaining I get the surprised but impressed look paired with "Oh, thats so fascinating!". What am I? A new animal hybrid discovered by German Scientists? Seriously.


So to sum it up why I hate answering this question is because in my own head, I begin to question my own identity. And jokes about my real gender (thanks to The Hangover II and their portrayal of transgender people) doesn't help really either. 

Tiger Moms and the Internet

Asian parents have always been stereotypically labeled as strict. I and along with my other Asian friends can vouch for that. But it has never really been addressed until Amy Chua’s book and her online article on the WSJ. Her article spread through the interwebz like wildfire among the Asian community.

Love it or Hate it the crazy mother we were all raised by finally has a name, ‘Tiger Mother’. This inspired the internet meme called ‘Tiger Mom says’ and the tiger dad version, ‘High Expectations Father’.

Like the popular internet memes, Tiger mom says features funny, stereotypical but exaggerated phrases centered around a stern looking Asian lady and an old Asian man for High Expectations father.

Tiger Mom says is the mother we all have. She expects way too much from you, nothing is ever good enough and has a hard time with communicating her emotions with you or anyone. Harsh but true. No one will understand the Tiger mother like a child raised by one. Asian kids can read these, laugh, agree with them and think of their own moms.

Not a lot of Asians are represented in mainstream media. There are thousands of Asian supporting characters in the biggest movies but rarely are they the main character. So the internet provides a place, a community for Asians to feel like a part of them is represented. Asian stereotypes are poked fun at by Asians, no one is offending anyone which makes the internet a great place for us to find out that we are not the only ones with crazy Asian parents.

On a side note, though there are plenty of strict parents out there that are not Asian. There’s something about Tiger mothers that make them so distinct. I think its because she still has the values and way of thinking from her motherland, she’s still kind of a Fob. An adorable fob though, one that we can’t help but laugh at and love. Thus one of my favorite sites for awhile, mymomisafob.com embodies just that. The title says it all. Its full of funny submissions by kids with fobby mothers. It highlights their funny struggles with the English language and the oh so valuable but sometimes ridiculous life lessons.

One of my favorite submissions:

“Be sure to wear lots of underwear, so if you get rape it’ll take them longer and you can escape.”

Thanks for the great advice fobby moms of the world.

Paper 1: 3 Posts combined

Post 1:

I never contemplated issues on parenting. It felt like it was something to think about when you actually have a child at hand to parent. But after stumbling onto an excerpt titled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” from Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” on the Wall Street Journal, I began to think about how I would raise my own children in the future and reflect back on how I was raised by my own Mother. This article discusses parenting techniques of ‘Western mothers’ and ‘Chinese mothers’ (both used loosely as to generalize the two opposing ways of parenting) and recounts Chua’s own experience with raising her children. Chua describes Western mothers as accommodating to their child’s individuality while Chinese mothers believe protecting their children is preparing them for reality and their future.

To go into more detail, Chua’s own parenting ways include forbidding her daughters to do social activities but to always engage in academics. She threatened never begged, forced never asked and taunted never praised her children to do what she thought would make them into successful human beings. She called her daughters ‘garbage’ when they disrespected her, and in contrast a Western mother would try to find blame externally rather than in her children. And in the end Western children have self-esteem issues when they cannot take criticisms in the real world because they were never brought up that way while Chinese children grow a thicker skin.

Now recounting my own upbringing, I was raised by very traditional Chinese parents but attended an International school with people like myself and friends from more laid back families similar to the Western families Chua describes in the article. I could not help but apply her points to my own parents and my friend’s parents and compare myself to my friends. As well as what kind of people we have become today because of the way we were raised.

My mother was an odd combination of both mothers. I received the occasional smack or pinch here and there, I played both the Violin and the Piano and I was taught the importance of education and academic success. But at the same time I was also praised and was allowed to pursue any field of study in my future as long as I was good at it. I learned to be disciplined and obedient but at the same time confident in myself and persevered in everything I did. While a friend of mine on the other hand had a mother who nurtured and solved her problems for her every step of the way. Growing up with my friend, I watched her suffer from self-esteem issues, eating disorders, and lack of motivation to work for something up until this day. Like Chua mentions in the article, Western mothers tend to ‘tip toe around’ issues regarding their children so they never learn to handle criticism in the real world. I watched as my friend’s mother treated her like a princess at home but any little fault placed on her in school often led to her in tears.

My brother and I enjoy discussing parenting with implications of culture. He always stressed that when he had children, he would praise them for ‘working hard’ but never for ‘being smart’. His philosophy was if his children failed at doing something, they could blame themselves for not working hard enough and begin to fix it next time. While if they were told they were ‘smart’ when they succeeded, failing would only prompt them to think they were not smart and since being smart was a quality more difficult to attain, they may give up. I thought about this concept long and hard and decided that I agreed with it completely. Perhaps this is what these Chinese mothers are doing with their children therefore they succeed in a way other children could not. Perhaps Chinese people are not as smart as the stereotype suggests but that they are more hard working and willing to do what it takes to succeed.

I am not surprised Amy Chua did not mention a word on hitting her children, perhaps she doesn't but if she does and publicizes it, it would get ugly, I mean legally. Its an interesting look at how society and law is created amongst countries. I am sure there are absolutely no rules on hitting children in Asia.

What do you guys think about Amy Chua's philosophy? How were you raised by your own mother? Any comments on hitting/physical punishment?
I myself would use hitting as a way of discipline but like many things, its only good in moderation. But this is a topic saved for another day. 

Post 2:

The Blog I have chosen the write about is titled Harvard Mother – A Quest to raise a successful child. This should instantly grab my attention, I mean all mothers (especially Asian) want their children to go to Harvard (mainly because big shot names like Harvard excites them) and want to raise them to be successful so they may attend such schools. This blog is written by a woman named Lulu, the Harvard Mother who wanted to blog about raising her new son as she is forever grateful to how her mother raised her. She believes the reason she is now a Harvard Business School graduated (thus the name and often bragged about through her posts) is because of her mother. The concept of this blog seemed quite fitting but some posts are quite strange.

Harvard Mother has not been writing for long, in fact only starting late last year. She has some followers and a few comments here and there. Perhaps it is a new blog but as I read deeper I really doubt any other mother would be interested in her posts. Though they might, her writing style seems stiff and robotic, too straightforward and not entertaining at all.

One of her posts where she proposes the idea that success would include a good balance between a child’s IQ and EQ (http://harvardmother.com/2012/01/17/138/). I liked this idea as my mother often brought up IQ and EQ to explain the people around us. And I do agree, being successful, you need to be smart and personable.
In the post Harvard Mother constructs a 2x2 Matrix with IQ against EQ and split them into 4 quadrants. 
·      High IQ and Low EQ
·      High IQ and High EQ
·      Low IQ and Low EQ
·      Low IQ and High IQ
She goes on to describe each quadrant, about the characteristics of a child within those quadrant and what she would do to move her own son to the High IQ and High EQ quadrant which is the most desirable. She uses ‘geeks, nerds and Asians’ for the High IQ and Low EQ quadrant and ‘cheerleaders’ for the Low IQ and High EQ. For her to use stereotypes makes me feel very uncomfortable and shows she is not using a modern and open mind. Additionally she uses made up words like ‘momtervention’ for if her son was every in the Low IQ and Low EQ quadrant. Further more she uses her son in this discussion like he is some guinea pig she will later test on when he is of age.

However she does have useful posts if mothers do need guidance in certain fields. I guess coming from a business school she can shed a little light on the finances of raising a child, especially sending them to college. (http://harvardmother.com/2012/01/03/how-much-should-you-save-for-college/)
However her child is still a 4 month old infant and perhaps she should talk about parenting issues that she will face in the near future before wondering about college admissions and essays.

Some of her general ideas are worth talking about in my own blog however I do not like the way she writes and anything after the first two lines are useless to me. For me I want to write about problems and issues that parents face as the years go by and give it my own voice and spin off the issue. I don’t want to tell the readers what to do but simply show my side and see what everyone else thinks. 

Post 3:

          A blog with a voice that I responded to is called ‘I’m not the Nanny’ by a mother of two named Kim. Kim is an Asian American married to an African American man and raising two biracial children. I didn’t read much into Kim’s blog until recently and discovered an honest and imperfect woman who just wishes to share modern day issues using her own experience through her blog. This is exactly what I wanted to do. The only word to describe this blogger is honest.
          A few posts that got to me interested was “I never meant to marry a black man” http://www.imnotthenanny.com/2011/05/i-never-meant-to-marry-black-man.html, it tells the sad journey from meeting her husband, falling in love with him and marrying him only to never gain the approval from her parents.
          She writes humbly but you know she is happy with her life. Her posts are not rants but more like reflecting and contemplating on things that happen in her life and asking what other people think about it. It is a recount of a random event in her daily life that makes her think, so she shares it with others.
          Another post that really touched me was called “ Never good enough for my parents” http://www.imnotthenanny.com/2011/10/never-good-enough-for-my-parents.html. The title itself is bold and gets straight to the point, it grabs your attention and you see this issue through her eyes via her words. Kim explains issues of Asian American identity through her own experiences growing up and what she thinks about it now.
          That is the tone I want to set for my blog, to address current issues surrounding Asian Americans especially parenting and relate it to my own life. Her topics are current and are always open-ended so other people may ponder on their own and share their own thoughts. Additionally she uses rhetorical questions to keep her posts grounded, as it is her real experiences and she is a real mother blogging on existing issues. It also adds humor and a conversational feel to the posts.
          My favorite part about her posts are its often a reflection, even though she said one thing in another post, she will bring it back and fit it perfectly into her current discussion. And of course how closely I can relate to her, coming from a traditional Asian family and being surrounded by people of various cultures, I am well aware of where I am in this big melting pot of a world. 

Stumbling upon a great Blog

          A blog with a voice that I responded to is called ‘I’m not the Nanny’ by a mother of two named Kim. Kim is an Asian American married to an African American man and raising two biracial children. I didn’t read much into Kim’s blog until recently and discovered an honest and imperfect woman who just wishes to share modern day issues using her own experience through her blog. This is exactly what I wanted to do. The only word to describe this blogger is honest.

          A few posts that got to me interested was “I never meant to marry a black man” http://www.imnotthenanny.com/2011/05/i-never-meant-to-marry-black-man.html, it tells the sad journey from meeting her husband, falling in love with him and marrying him only to never gain the approval from her parents.

          She writes humbly but you know she is happy with her life. Her posts are not rants but more like reflecting and contemplating on things that happen in her life and asking what other people think about it. It is a recount of a random event in her daily life that makes her think, so she shares it with others.

          Another post that really touched me was called “ Never good enough for my parents” http://www.imnotthenanny.com/2011/10/never-good-enough-for-my-parents.html. The title itself is bold and gets straight to the point, it grabs your attention and you see this issue through her eyes via her words. Kim explains issues of Asian American identity through her own experiences growing up and what she thinks about it now.

          That is the tone I want to set for my blog, to address current issues surrounding Asian Americans especially parenting and relate it to my own life. Her topics are current and are always open-ended so other people may ponder on their own and share their own thoughts. Additionally she uses rhetorical questions to keep her posts grounded, as it is her real experiences and she is a real mother blogging on existing issues. It also adds humor and a conversational feel to the posts.

          My favorite part about her posts are its often a reflection, even though she said one thing in another post, she will bring it back and fit it perfectly into her current discussion. And of course how closely I can relate to her, coming from a traditional Asian family and being surrounded by people of various cultures, I am well aware of where I am in this big melting pot of a world. 

Profiling a Blog

The Blog I have chosen the write about is titled Harvard Mother – A Quest to raise a successful child. This should instantly grab my attention, I mean all mothers (especially Asian) want their children to go to Harvard (mainly because big shot names like Harvard excites them) and want to raise them to be successful so they may attend such schools. This blog is written by a woman named Lulu, the Harvard Mother who wanted to blog about raising her new son as she is forever grateful to how her mother raised her. She believes the reason she is now a Harvard Business School graduated (thus the name and often bragged about through her posts) is because of her mother. The concept of this blog seemed quite fitting but some posts are quite strange.

Harvard Mother has not been writing for long, in fact only starting late last year. She has some followers and a few comments here and there. Perhaps it is a new blog but as I read deeper I really doubt any other mother would be interested in her posts. Though they might, her writing style seems stiff and robotic, too straightforward and not entertaining at all.

One of her posts where she proposes the idea that success would include a good balance between a child’s IQ and EQ (http://harvardmother.com/2012/01/17/138/). I liked this idea as my mother often brought up IQ and EQ to explain the people around us. And I do agree, being successful, you need to be smart and personable.

In the post Harvard Mother constructs a 2x2 Matrix with IQ against EQ and split them into 4 quadrants.

·      High IQ and Low EQ

·      High IQ and High EQ

·      Low IQ and Low EQ

·      Low IQ and High IQ

She goes on to describe each quadrant, about the characteristics of a child within those quadrant and what she would do to move her own son to the High IQ and High EQ quadrant which is the most desirable. She uses ‘geeks, nerds and Asians’ for the High IQ and Low EQ quadrant and ‘cheerleaders’ for the Low IQ and High EQ. For her to use stereotypes makes me feel very uncomfortable and shows she is not using a modern and open mind. Additionally she uses made up words like ‘momtervention’ for if her son was every in the Low IQ and Low EQ quadrant. Further more she uses her son in this discussion like he is some guinea pig she will later test on when he is of age.

However she does have useful posts if mothers do need guidance in certain fields. I guess coming from a business school she can shed a little light on the finances of raising a child, especially sending them to college. (http://harvardmother.com/2012/01/03/how-much-should-you-save-for-college/)

However her child is still a 4 month old infant and perhaps she should talk about parenting issues that she will face in the near future before wondering about college admissions and essays.

Some of her general ideas are worth talking about in my own blog however I do not like the way she writes and anything after the first two lines are useless to me. For me I want to write about problems and issues that parents face as the years go by and give it my own voice and spin off the issue. I don’t want to tell the readers what to do but simply show my side and see what everyone else thinks. 

The idea behind this blog

I never contemplated issues on parenting. It felt like it was something to think about when you actually have a child at hand to parent. But after stumbling onto an excerpt titled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” from Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” on the Wall Street Journal, I began to think about how I would raise my own children in the future and reflect back on how I was raised by my own Mother. This article discusses parenting techniques of ‘Western mothers’ and ‘Chinese mothers’ (both used loosely as to generalize the two opposing ways of parenting) and recounts Chua’s own experience with raising her children. Chua describes Western mothers as accommodating to their child’s individuality while Chinese mothers believe protecting their children is preparing them for reality and their future.

To go into more detail, Chua’s own parenting ways include forbidding her daughters to do social activities but to always engage in academics. She threatened never begged, forced never asked and taunted never praised her children to do what she thought would make them into successful human beings. She called her daughters ‘garbage’ when they disrespected her, and in contrast a Western mother would try to find blame externally rather than in her children. And in the end Western children have self-esteem issues when they cannot take criticisms in the real world because they were never brought up that way while Chinese children grow a thicker skin.

Now recounting my own upbringing, I was raised by very traditional Chinese parents but attended an International school with people like myself and friends from more laid back families similar to the Western families Chua describes in the article. I could not help but apply her points to my own parents and my friend’s parents and compare myself to my friends. And what kind of people we have become today because of the way we were raised.

My mother was an odd combination of both mothers. I received the occasional smack or pinch here and there, I played both the Violin and the Piano and I was taught the importance of education and academic success. But at the same time I was also praised and was allowed to pursue any field of study in my future as long as I was good at it. I learned to be disciplined and obedient but at the same time confident in myself and persevered in everything I did. While a friend of mine on the other hand had a mother who nurtured and solved her problems for her every step of the way. Growing up with my friend, I watched her suffer from self-esteem issues, eating disorders, and lack of motivation to work for something up until this day. Like Chua mentions in the article, Western mothers tend to ‘tip toe around’ issues regarding their children so they never learn to handle criticism in the real world. I watched as my friend’s mother treated her like a princess at home but any little fault placed on her in school often led to her in tears.

My brother and I enjoy discussing parenting with implications of culture. He always stressed that when he had children, he would praise them for ‘working hard’ but never for ‘being smart’. His philosophy was if his children failed at doing something, they could blame themselves for not working hard enough and begin to fix it next time. While if they were told they were ‘smart’ when they succeeded, failing would only prompt them to think they were not smart and since being smart was a quality more difficult to attain, they may give up. I thought about this concept long and hard and decided that I agreed with it completely. Perhaps this is what these Chinese mothers are doing with their children therefore they succeed in a way other children could not. Perhaps Chinese people are not as smart as the stereotype suggests but that they are more hard working and willing to do what it takes to succeed.


I am not surprised Amy Chua did not mention a word on hitting her children, perhaps she doesn't but if she does and publicizes it, it would get ugly, I mean legally. Its an interesting look at how society and law is created amongst countries. I am sure there are absolutely no rules on hitting children in Asia.


What do you guys think about Amy Chua's philosophy? How were you raised by your own mother? Any comments on hitting/physical punishment?
I myself would use hitting as a way of discipline but like many things, its only good in moderation. But this is a topic saved for another day. 

First Post

First Post.
Any Questions? Yes, I will hit my kids.